"See"? an adorable gift, from Lisa!

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

"See"? an adorable gift, from Lisa!

I'm super excited to start this gift series in an awesome way with our first guest post. Lisa blogs over at Grey Luster Girl - a blog I fell in love with for the cute parties, pretty pictures, do-able DIY's and great refashion ideas.

Hello! I am Lisa and I blog over at Grey Luster Girl. I am stoked to be here for another installment of Kim's Gift It Series! With summer time drawing to a close, I thought I would share a fun teacher gift that is sure to start the year off for your child's teacher in style. I originally made this gift as an end of year gift but it could easily be adapted for anytime of the year simply by changing the saying.

The gift idea started out as a project for myself actually. I wanted to make a case for my sunglasses because they always end up getting scratched in my purse. Then a little phrase popped into my head and I knew it would be a darling teacher gift.

"Thank you for helping me 'See', just how fun learning can be". I wanted the case to be slightly retro looking and all around cute. I made one case for my daughters teacher and loved it so much that I made one for myself too.

I chose my fabric, a light whitish color for the outside and a blue with white polka dots for the inside.

I cut two 8x5 inch rectangles from the white outside and two from the blue lining as well. This was for the teachers case. After it was finished I thought that the case was just slightly too wide. I cut the fabric rectangles 8 x 4 1/2 inches for my case. I am on the fence about which one I like better. The 8 x 4 1/2 fits the sunglasses nicely but I feel like the 8x5 one just looks better. With the fabric cut I set out to make the sunglasses image. I used my Cameo to cut out a pair of sunglasses on freezer paper. Using the negative piece, I ironed it onto the right side of the outside white piece of fabric. The glasses are such a simple image that if you don't have an electronic cutter, you could just trace a picture of glasses onto freezer paper and cut it out with an exacto knife. I used a velveteen fabric paint in black to paint in the sunglasses image. Following the instructions I let it dry for 4 hours and then set a piece of scrap fabric over it while I ironed it. That is what makes the velveteen pop and it sets the paint.

To assemble the bag I used this simple to follow tutorial from Pink Polka Dot Creations. I got the sunglasses on sale so that helped cut the cost down and I had all the other materials for the bag already so it turned out to be a pretty cost effective gift as well.